I've wondered about Rodin's famous sculpture. Is he engaged in deep thought or sitting around wasting time? And why isn't he wearing pants? I ask the same of myself. Here we comment on well, mostly politics. Or we may just sit! If you like it, tell a friend. If not, tell us, but please read the GROUND RULES before you do.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Republican Parasites in the Senate Block Senate Vote on Financial Reform for Third Time

The United States Senate cannot at this moment be called “the world’s greatest deliberative body” -- a reach at the best of times -- but rather America’s whorehouse, in which Senate Republicans en masse line up to service the 1,500 lobbyist vultures who have descended on Capitol Hill. So far only one DINO, Senator Ben Nelson, has joined the kept Senators in their House of ill-repute, which makes it 29 lobbyists for each Republican Senator.

Madam Mitch McConnell, Wall Street's sock puppet, continues to preach the Orwellian line that the $50 billion liquidation fund to permit the orderly failure of financial institutions, firing of management, with shareholders taking the loss, is a “taxpayer bailout” per Frank “Goebbels” Luntz’s BIG LIE talking point. Obviously, even the most obtuse taxpayer understands that a fund financed by Wall Street banks without a nickel of taxpayer’s money for purposes of an orderly liquidation, analogized by NJ Democratic Senator Menendez to a funeral fund, is not a taxpayer bailout. Quite the contrary, (to the second argument by Republicans, that such a fund encourages risky behavior) existence of such a fund actually discourages players from engaging in risky behavior. Once the players realize there is a process in place to liquidate “too big to fail” institutions, it is no longer an abstraction in which bailouts or else are the only options left to governments and taxpayers held over the barrel of another financial collapse.

Madam McConnell is the Senate’s most dedicated disciple of George Orwell. Quick rule of thumb to decipher McConnell-speak: Everything Mitch says is the opposite of what it means, a kind of yin-yang word association. When Madam Mitch says:

“Wall Street” he means “Main Street”; “taxpayer bailout” means “Wall Street bailout”; “small business” means “BIG banks and transnational corporations”; “unintended consequences” means “intended consequences to my biggest corporate donors”; “written by a few guys in a room” means “Republican obstructionism and non-cooperation”; “jammed through the Senate” means “60-vote supermajority”; “massive” means “comprehensive”; “President Obama said the biggest beneficiaries of this bill are on Wall Street” means “President Obama said that by setting out clear rules of the road and ensuring transparency and fair dealings, we will actually promote a more vibrant market”; “supporters of this bill have locked up the support of Goldman Sachs” means “Wall Street elites, banks, and hedge fund managers held a secret meeting with moi, Madam McConnell to pay me mucho diñero to prevent regulations that stop bailouts”; “traditional derivatives” means “synthetic derivatives does not mean traditional derivatives”; “homeowners and small business owners in Kentucky” means “transnational corporations and Wall Street banks”; “recent performance of the Democratic Majority” means (petulantly) “how dare you call me on Frank Luntz talking points”; “a lot of people want more than a verbal assurance, they want proof” means (projection) “take our word for it, Wall Street doesn’t need more regulation, they’ve given me verbal assurances, a wink and a nod and (have I mentioned this?) mucho, mucho diñero”; “the Fertilizer Institute and Kentucky farmers will be punished by this bill” means “straw man, Wall Street will be punished by this bill”; “Americans want this bill fixed” means “Wall Street wants this bill killed or watered down”; “verbal assurances” means “written regulatory rules of the road”; “Consumer Financial Protection Agency” means “massive government overreach”; “U.S. Chamber of Commerce means Goldman Sachs and Citigroup (don’t be fooled by Republican bait-and-switch -- Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, shameless denizen of the best little whorehouse in Texas), and all the umbrella organizations cited by Republicans” means “Wall Street, transnational corporations, right wing Astroturf groups such as Freedomworks, the major Republican Party business, anti-financial (kill the bill) regulation donor base”; “Americans expect us to prove we’re doing what we say we’re doing” means “stop kvetching, Democrats, I’m only doing what my Wall Street donors expect me to do”; “I don’t blame them one bit” means “I don’t blame them (“Wall Street ”) one bit”; “after all, isn’t that how the legislative process is supposed to work” means “we’re gonna shatter the all-time filibuster record in the service of our corporate owners, and we don’t care because the SCOTUS ruling corporatizing the U.S. government will give us one-party rule, i.e. fascism, without accountability or consequences”; “major legislation is proposed, the American people get to take a look at it, they let us know how it would affect them, and then we weigh those concerns against the various problems at hand” means “major legislation is proposed, Wall Street lobbyists get to take a look at it, Wall Street lobbyists let us know how it would affect them, and then we weigh those Wall Street lobbyist concerns against the various problems at hand”; “The authors of this bill may believe some of these concerns are misplaced. But they’re going to have to prove it” means “FILIBUSTER TODAY, FILIBUSTER TOMORROW, FILIBUSTER FOREVER! (Insert Rebel yell.)”